OFC it depends a lot of the tools you need to use. Germans (and Finns too) generally thought that if you ended up in dogfight, that was a tactical error.

Japanese tried to bind the opponents in dogfight and fought one-by-one. The main fault of Allied AF tactics in Pacific was to try to fight the Japanese in their own terms. It took a while to learn.

This account with SBD / Zero was new for me (even I have read my fair share of Pacific Air War too), interesting!

Similar kind of "dogfight" happened in 1944, when German night fighter ace Hans-Joachim Jabs was having a test flight in daylight with his Bf110G night fighter (with radar and all) and was caught by a flight of 6 Spitfire IXB's from 132 Squadron, led by Geoffrey Page (15 victory ace). Jabs managed to shoot down 2 of the Spitfires and land the Bf110 (before it was destroyed by strafing).

I have no doubt that, if properly employed, the Zero could hold it's own or better versus most competition, but it's weakness of having only modest power available dictated the other flaws, such as lack of self-sealing tanks, armor, and heavier construction. Given the modest power assigned to the airframe, the Zero was probably the best-performing fighter built during the war. I can think of nobody else who came even close with less than 1,200 HP on tap. Even the plucky little Sewdish FFVS J-22 had more power. The highest HP Zero model was the A6M5 Model 52, and it has 1,180 HP at full rattle. Almost all other models had less, and the prototype started out with only 880 HP!

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The Nakajima Ki.43 and Curtiss-Wright CW-21 come to mind immediately for me.

OFC it depends a lot of the tools you need to use. Germans (and Finns too) generally thought that if you ended up in dogfight, that was a tactical error.

Japanese tried to bind the opponents in dogfight and fought one-by-one. The main fault of Allied AF tactics in Pacific was to try to fight the Japanese in their own terms. It took a while to learn.

This account with SBD / Zero was new for me (even I have read my fair share of Pacific Air War too), interesting!

Similar kind of "dogfight" happened in 1944, when German night fighter ace Hans-Joachim Jabs was having a test flight in daylight with his Bf110G night fighter (with radar and all) and was caught by a flight of 6 Spitfire IXB's from 132 Squadron, led by Geoffrey Page (15 victory ace). Jabs managed to shoot down 2 of the Spitfires and land the Bf110 (before it was destroyed by strafing).

It's on one of the episodes of the T.V. docu "Dogfights". Im not sure if you are aware of that show. I actually read the account in a book b4 i seen the show. But yeah, if anyone is ever interested in taking a look i can give you the link to the show.

Or just go on youtube and type in.......Dogfights - Long odds. Its free and only about 15 mins long but worth checking out.